California Innocence Project

We are a nonprofit organization founded in 1999 by Justin Brooks and co-founder Jan Stiglitz. As a legal clinic at California Western School of Law in San Diego, California, we work to free wrongfully incarcerated individuals, train law students, and reform our criminal justice system.

Founded in 1999, CIP reviews more than 2,000 DNA and non-DNA claims of innocence from California inmates each year. Law students work alongside CIP staff attorneys on cases where there is strong evidence of factual innocence. Together, they have secured the release of many innocent people who otherwise may have spent the rest of their lives in prison, including 3 men who were each incarcerated for more than 20 years for crimes they did not commit.